Sunday, 29 October 2017

Typical Halloween Nail Art


Howdy y'all!

With Halloween just days away, I thought I should probably join in with the spirit (ha ha, no pun intended) of things and do a typical Halloween nail art design. I am a big fan of all things creepy and dark, but dark colours tend to stain and I was just not ready for that kind of clean up. So, I chose something else I am hoping will be just as fitting. Keep reading to see what polishes and tools I used for my typical Halloween nail art. 

Typical Halloween Nail Art With Black Stamping Polish

I used these nail polishes:
Orange by OXX Cosmetic (K-mart brand)
Black Stamping Polish by Emily de Molly
Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

I also used these products:
Camo Coat by Celestial Cosmetics
Stamping plate Qgirl-002 by La Qin An
Stamping plate BP-122 by Born Pretty
Large clear stamper
Scraper
Mani Saver
Cotton Balls
Paper towel

Just a quick side story - I spent 15 minutes trying to find the actual name of this orange polish, only to learn that the name is not on the bottle but rather on the packaging which I obviously threw out. So, unfortunately I am unable to give you the name from the brand, however, after looking at others colours by OXX, they seem to keep polish names simple, so I think orange is a pretty accurate name to go by for the purpose of this post. 

Typical Halloween Nail Art with Orange

I started off with two coats of Orange for my base. I then applied Camo Coat around each nail for easier clean up and allowed to dry completely. Prior to stamping, I always place two pieces of paper towel slightly underneath the stamping plate. I do this for a number of reasons;
1. So that I don't get polish all over my desk.
2. I can use it to wipe off the scraper to avoid build up.
3. If I'm having trouble picking up a design, I roll my stamper on it to remove the failed images.

Using stamping plate Qgirl-002, I cover my chosen design with Black Stamping Polish. I then scraped off the excess and picked up the image with my stamper, quickly pressing it on to the nail, then lightly pressed my finger over the design to ensure the image transferred correctly. With the help of my mani saver, I dipped a cotton ball into some acetone and used it to clean off the stamping plate. This just makes sure any left over polish doesn't dry on the plate and cause issues if I want to reuse this design, which I did for two nails.
I continued each of these steps until I had a design on each nail. I also used images from stamping plate BP-122 on my ring finger and thumb (not pictured). I decided to use different images because there are quite a few to choose from and I thought it would be more fun to have something different as opposed to all nails being the same, which I feel I do a little too often. Lastly, I removed the Camo Coat and finished with a quick dry top coat. 


Typical Halloween Nail Art

I'm not normally a fan of orange, in fact I would say it is a colour that I hate, but I liked it for this particular design. It definitely reminds me of a giant pumpkin with a face carved into it, and of course pumpkins are a huge part of Halloween. Although I really have no idea why.. I'm assuming it's an American thing. If you know, please tell me!

So there you have it, my typical Halloween nail art. It's nothing too adventurous, but it's still cool and it gave me a chance to use this orange polish that I picked up simply because it was $1 and I wanted to try out this brand. Not at all complaining!

What do you think?
What are you dressing your nails up as for Halloween this year?
Leave me a comment below! 


Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, 22 October 2017

Rainbow Dotticure Nail Art


Howdy everyone!

Well, it looks like it's Sunday again already! These last two weeks have just completely flown by! I can't believe it. I'm really excited because last week's mani lasted about two days, which is pretty devastating. I'm not exactly sure why, but that means it's definitely time for a new nail art design!

Here it is, a basic rainbow dotticure design that's so easy, anyone can do it - no skills required. I love being able to use multiple colours in my nail art and I love doing simple designs, so why not combine the two? Keep reading to see what products and polishes I used to create this design.

Rainbow Dotticure Nail Art Design

For this nail art I used the following polishes:
Status Symbol by Essie
Matte Purple by BYS Cosmetics
Head In The Clouds by BYS Cosmetics
Roller Coaster by BYS Cosmetics
Sand In Your Stilettos by Chi Chi Cosmetics
Blanc by Essie
Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen
G'day Matte Top Coat by piCture pOlish

Products used:
Medium sized dotting tool
Plastic sandwich bag

Rainbow Dotticure Nail Art Design with Head In The Clouds
I started with two coats of Blanc for my base, allowing sufficient time for each layer to dry. I then took a plastic sandwich bag and dropped a small amount of Pink onto it. Using my dotting tool, I dipped it into Pink and started placing random dots on my index nail. Each time I use it, the size changes due to the amount of polish left. I tried to make larger dots by circling around a dot I'd already created, but things got a little out of hand and they now look like blobs. I only have the one size tool so this is all I could do... I really ought to get a few different sized ones. Once I was satisfied with the coverage of dots, I cleaned my dotting tool by dipping it into some acetone and wiping it on a sheet of paper towel. I then moved onto the next colour. I continued this for all nails, making sure to clean my tool in between each colour. Once I was finished with the dots, I applied Kwik Dry Top Coat, allowed time to dry and then finished with G'day Matte Top Coat.  

Rainbow Dotticure with Status Symbol
So there you have it. A really easy, cute and fun nail art design that anyone can do! You don't even need an actual dotting tool. Years back, before I knew there were such things as tools for nail art, I used a toothpick that I would hit against a hard surface until it became blunt and slightly larger. It works just as well as the tool I now have, and much easier to clean because you can just chuck it in the bin! I was actually pretty impressed with the outcome of this design because I have a bad habit of needing things to be neat and orderly, so trying to place dots in random locations was hard... but I made it through! 

Rainbow Dotticure with G'day Matte Top Coat
That's all for this week. 
What do you think? 
Have you done something like this? 
Let me know by leaving a comment below, or a link to your design, I'd love to check it out myself. 

Thanks for stopping by!